Introduction -- I. Probing the theory -- The descent of the ego -- The anthropology of the interaction order -- Redefining the situation: Extending dramaturgy into a theory of social change and media effects -- Is Erving Goffman a phenomenologist? -- The phenomenology of miscommunication -- The cross-cultural relevance of Goffman's concept of individual agency -- Erving Goffman as a precursor to post-modern sociology -- Reading Goffman: Toward the deconstruction of sociology -- II. Expanding the Scope: Forms of institutions, forms of language -- Legal decisions: A frame analytic perspective -- Making sense of religion by direct observation: An application of frame analysis -- Gender codes in women's advice books -- Forms of talk/figures of speech -- III. Expanding the Scope: Objects, events and communication -- How to do self with things -- The power of things: The role of domestic objects in the presentation of self -- The mediating role of objects in the functioning of social structure: A case study of kwai -- Erving Goffman and the study of everyday protest -- Incidents, accidents, failures: The representation of negative experience in public entertainment -- Subject Index -- Name Index -- References to works by Erving Goffman.